The purpose of this blog is to provide analytical commentary on formal and informal labour organisations and their attempts to resist ever more brutal forms of exploitation in today’s neo-liberal, global capitalism.

Sunday, 11 November 2012

Reflections on a progressive research strategy on European labour

On Tuesday, 6 November I participated in a
workshop on the ‘Future of Trade Unions and Unions Research’ in Berlin,
organised by the Hans Böckler Stiftung and the Wirtschafts- and Sozialwissenschaftliches Institut (WSI). The purpose of the workshop was to try to envisage the role of
unions in past, present and future research on Europe’s political economy writ
large. In this post, I will reflect on what key aspects of an innovative
research project on the future of European trade unions could look like. In
more detail, I will identify three key aspects: (1) the importance of
conceptualising the implications of the changing social relations of
production; (2) the potential role of trade unions beyond the workplace; and
(3) the necessity to learn from the Global South.

Trade unions and the dangers of ‘social partnership ideology’

During the first 20 to 30 years of the post-war period, trade unions in
Europe had been extremely successful. Bipartite institutions with employers or
tripartite institutions with employers and the state were set up to facilitate
direct influence on socio-economic policy-making. Full employment was the order
of the day and trade unions managed to secure rising wages for their members in
collective bargaining with employers’ associations. Additionally, generous
welfare systems were established ensuring universal access to education, health services, housing, etc. The exact institutions, the concrete policies differed from country
to country. Nonetheless, there was a general move towards social justice in
society via policies of wealth re-distribution.

What trade unions today, however, tend to overlook is how this
historical development related to the underlying social relations of production
in post-war Europe. The specific configuration of social class forces was decisive
for labour’s advances. Welfare states including bipartite and tripartite
institutions were set up not because of the goodwill of the employers, but
because labour had been able to balance the structural power of capital. Against
the background of system competition with the Soviet Union and support for
socialism amongst workers, and in view of the increasing organizational power
of trade unions built through successful struggles in society, employers were
forced to accept social progress during the 1950s and 1960s (see The Rise and Fall of the Welfare State).

Trade unions have forgotten the historical background of welfare states.
Social dialogue institutions, the result of working class power, are today often
regarded as the cause of, and guarantee for, the welfare state. It would be
enough, it is argued, to pursue discussions with employers within these
institutions to ensure the continuation of welfare services. Unsurprisingly,
the focus on social dialogue with employers is often combined with a focus on
union internal developments and problems in the workplace. New recruitment
drives at workplaces are developed, internal procedures modernised and
especially the service provision for members developed. By contrast, an active
engagement with issues relevant for wider society is rather rare.

As a result of what Asbjørn Wahl calls ‘social partnership ideology’ in his book on the welfare state, trade unions have overlooked the new challenges they face in a changing global
economy and the way these changes have altered the balance of power in favour
of capital. Since the mid-1970s the increasing transnationalisation of
production structures as part of neo-liberal restructuring has increasingly brought different national labour movements
in competition with each other. Processes of subcontracting and outsourcing,
moreover, have led to an informalisation of labour relations also in Europe and
led to an increasingly large pecariat (see The precariat). Trade unions
have not yet found ways to organise successfully in this highly fragmented and constantly
changing labour market (Bieler, Lindberg and Sauerborn 2010: 4-13).

In short, unless trade unions change and go beyond a focus on social
dialogue with employers and workplace related issues, there is a danger that
they become increasingly irrelevant for wider society considering these new
dynamics and challenges.

The institutionalist bias in academic labour research

These developments within the European labour movements are mirrored to
a large extent in academic research on trade unions. Labour academics too have
succumbed to a kind of ‘social partnership ideology’. There are lengthy
discussions about the varieties of capitalism in Europe and the related
differences between individual national institutional set-ups of how trade
unions are integrated or not into national policy-making processes. Similar to
trade unions’ oversight of the historical importance of the power balance
between capital and labour, underlying the setting-up of these institutions,
academics too pretend that we could analyse different national political
economies and trade unions without referring to the changing social relations
of production. Unsurprisingly, a lot of research deals with the multi-sector and
sectoral dialogues at the European level totally oblivious of the fact that the
underlying power structure is completely different from the power structure,
when national welfare states were set up at
the national level during the 1950s and 1960s.

Moreover, similar to trade unions’ own focus on their internal structure
and workplace related issues, labour academics too prioritise the study of
trade unions’ organising strategies, the role of works councils in the workplace
and institutional processes such as collective bargaining. More hard data on
collective bargaining outcomes in different countries should be collected, it
is demanded, to get a better understanding of trade unions’ role and
effectiveness in society. The fact that the coverage of collective bargaining
is constantly declining and that trade unions in bargaining rounds, when they
continue to take place, are constantly forced into making concessions with
little in return as a result of the changing power structure between capital
and labour is completely overlooked.

Overall, while not unimportant, as long as such a narrow focus continues
to dominate trade union research in Europe, industrial relations scholarship
will continue to decline in its importance within wider academia.

Key aspects of a progressive research agenda on the future of trade
unions in Europe

Which aspects should be part of a progressive research agenda, able to
overcome these shortcomings of current scholarship? In the following, I intend
to highlight three key themes, which are essential in my view.

1. The importance of the
underlying changes in the social relations of production:

Considering that the balance of power was key in the set-up of European
welfare states and that neo-liberal restructuring has changed this balance in
favour of capital, it is essential to conceptualise the relation between the
social relations of production on the one hand, and institutional set-ups and
trade union agency on the other. Of course, there is no economistic
determination in this relationship. However, it is clear that if the underlying
power structures change, there will be pressure on the form and contents of the
related institutions. Equally, if the underlying power structures change and a
trade union suddenly finds itself in a position of organising workers in
predominantly transnational production sectors, then there will be pressure on
this trade union to rethink its strategies accordingly.

In my view, there can be no adequate research on the future of trade
unions in Europe, without analysing closely the changes in the underlying
social relations of production and the related balance, or better imbalance, of
power between capital and labour.

2. Trade unions and their role
beyond the workplace:

In order to address the new challenges, trade unions need to start to
look beyond the workplace in their initiatives. Provided workers and work are
understood in a broader way, suddenly it may become possible to participate in
wider alliances with other social movements to expand the social basis of
resistance.

The current European Citizens’ Initiative for Water as a Human Right is
a good example in this respect (see European Citizens’ Initiative). The
European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) is a key participant in
this initiative. Access to clean water affects consumers, but when related to
demands for keeping water in public hands, also concerns directly public sector
workplaces and, thus, EPSU members. Unions and social movements together may
be able to halt and turn around privatisation of water supplies.

Analysis of this kind of initiatives, in my view, must be a key aspect
of an academic research agenda on the future of trade unions in Europe.
Analysing the conditions under which such initiatives work or fail can
potentially provide an important tool to assist trade unions in their endeavours
to reach beyond the workplace and address the new challenges.

3. Learning from the Global South

Europe is not an island. On the contrary, what happens in the area of
European social relations of production is heavily influenced by the changes in
the global economy and the emerging markets such as Brazil, China and India. A
research agenda on the future of trade unions in Europe must include a wider
assessment of the changing social relations of production in the global
economy.

Equally, research on European trade unions as agents must include
analyses of labour movements in the Global South. Countries in the Global South
have never known stable contracts as the typical way of how work was organised.
Unsurprisingly, they are more knowledgeable and experienced when it comes to
organising and mobilising in new and imaginative ways, be it the organisation
of street vendors, be it the mobilisation of rubbish pickers. The Southern Initiative on Globalisation and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR), furthermore, provides an interesting new form of institutional co-operation between different national labour movements in the Global South (see Lambert 2011). It is time that
labour movements from the North look for inspiration to the South. It is time
that labour movements from the North start learning from the Global South,
instead of patronising labour movements there with their Northern experiences
from the past.

Labour academics in Europe too, similarly to Northern labour movements, need to
embrace these new challenges. They need to contribute to new definitions of
work and workers, to a novel understanding of capitalist restructuring in times
of neo-liberal globalisation. They need to analyse the new forms of
co-operation, the new types of strategies found in the Global South and assist
in translating these experiences for trade unions in industrialised countries.

If European trade unions and trade union researchers fail to engage with
these new challenges, they risk becoming increasingly irrelevant in relation to
wider societal problems in general as well as discussions about how to move
beyond the current crisis of capitalism in particular. On the other hand, if
they embrace a more radical, progressive outlook, they may become active
participants in developments of resistance.